California's Children

Charters, nutrition & AEDs before Ass'blyAppro/Comm today

May 24, 2013: The Assembly Appropriations Committee, headed by Mike Gatto (D-Burbank), will consider more than 300 bills today, determining which pieces of proposed legislation will be passed on to the full Assembly for a vote. Among those are several affecting the lives of children:

AB 626/School Nutrition, rewrites education code to align state laws with federal laws and regulations set forth by the Healthy,Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, according to Food Policy Advocates in Oakland. The alignment affects "maintenance and appropriate use of the cafeteria fund (in which a district's school food revenues are held), as well as details about competitive foods sold outside the formal school meal program (e.g., vending machines, school stores). Among other changes, the bill specifies that "only beverages that meet specific nutritional standards may be sold to a pupil at an elementary school." Bill was sponsored by Nancy Skinner (D-Oakland) and Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach).

 AB 913/Charter Schools, a bill that expressly states that a charter school is subject to the California Public Records Act, the Ralph M. Brown Act, or, if it is operated by an entity governed by the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, that law -- i.e., a charter will be required to follow the same open meeting, public disclosure and conflict of interest laws that govern traditional school district boards. Authored by Ed Chau (D-Alhambra). The California School Boards Association is a co-sponsor of this bill. It is opposed by the California Charter Schools Association: ("The changes in AB 913 cut to the heart of traditional charter school governance and contradict longstanding charter law offering autonomy and opportunities for different operating structures than districts.")

AB 939/Pupil and Personnel Health: Defibrillators, is on the "watch" list for the California School Nurses Organization (neither support nor oppose). The bill, with the intent of encouraging all public schools to obtain an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) and to protect the district from lawsuits regarding its use (or nonuse),  would authorize a public school to accept "nonstate funds" to acquire and maintain the equipment. Authored by Melissa Melendez (R-Murrieta).

 

Monica Ratliff takes LAUSD seat w/52% of vote

UPDATE, May 22, 2013: Although LAUSD school board candidate Antonio Sanchez was heavily favored (he held first in the primary with 44% of the vote) and heavily financed (see backstory below), the Los Angeles Times has called yesterday's final election for the primary's place holder, fifth-grade teacher Monica Ratliff, at left. Ratliff won with less than $50,000 in small contributions; Sanchez, according to Howard Blume, education reporter for the Times: ...had the benefit of the combined clout of labor unions along with a deep-pocketed political-action committee spearheaded by outgoing L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, which amassed more than $1 million on his behalf for the runoff....

UPDATE, March 5, 2013: The Los Angeles Times reports that last-minute contributions to a political action committee, Coalition for School Reform, to support candidates for the Los Angeles Unified School Board (LAUSD) in today's election have brought the total contributions in that race to "over $3.8 million." At odds are viewpoints supporting the education policies (pro-charter schools, key among them) of LAUSD superintendent John Deasy and LA mayor Anthony Villraigosa, and those supporting the agenda of United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA), the union.

New money has come in from the Sacramento-based California Charter Schools Assn. ($300K), and New York City-based News America Inc. ($250K; Rupert Murdoch's company),  according to reports filed yesterday with the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, which oversees local campaign spending.

DOE: still considering an NCLB waiver for Big 9 CORE school districts

UPDATE, May 21, 2013: In what is probably the last word on a No Child Left Behind waiver for California from the U.S. Dept. of Education, the DOE announced three more state waivers were granted yesterday, and tallied up the penultimate results [emphases ours]:

...The eight states, plus the Bureau of Indian Education and Puerto Rico, with outstanding requests for waivers include: Alabama, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming.

The five states that have not yet requested flexibility include: California, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota (request withdrawn), and Vermont (request withdrawn). California has notified the Department that the state does not plan to request ESEA flexibility for the next school year, and instead will focus on implementing the new Common Core state standards. The Department will continue its consideration of a separate request for waivers from the CORE districts in California.

 May 6, 2013: The Los Angeles Daily News's education reporter Barbara Jones reports:  

A coalition of civil rights groups is opposing efforts by Los Angeles Unified and eight other school districts to get a waiver from a federal law requiring that all students be proficient in English and math by 2014.

In a letter sent [May 1] to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the groups say that exempting the districts from the No Child Left Behind law would create disparate systems for measuring student achievement.

L'Altos SD & Bullis Charter: forum Tues. w/give lawsuit updates

UPDATE, May 20, 2013: A while back, we called the dispute over "reasonably equivalent facilities" (Prop 39 education code law) between th Bullis Charter School and the Los Altos School District the public ed version of the movie,  "The War of the Roses." We were wrong. It more resembles Charles Dickens's Bleak House in its labyrinthian legal entanglements that will seemingly span generations.

 L.A. Chung of the Los Altos Patch reports today that there will be a meeting tomorrow night at the Garden House at Shoup Park, a city facility, sponsored by the Huttlinger Alliance for Education. The meeting (Tues., May 21, 7-10 p.m.), is a free update called "Straight Talk: A Community Forum on the BCS-LASD Facilities Litigation."  

Huttlinger is a non-profit formed to provide a voice for district parents. It is not a party to the litigation, but it has filed amicus briefs with the courts that has supported the district, (e.g., in September 2012, the Alliance...called on the Bullis Charter School board to withdraw its new lawsuit filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court...)

Trans-K and charters: is there an option?

May 9, 2013: Although the state Dept. of Education requires every public school that offers kindergarten to offer transitional kindergarten, charter schools continue to consider the legislation an option. Nevertheless, as early ed reporter Lillian Mongeau noted in EdSource this week, more charters are planning on offering trans-K in fall '13:

 ...“We continue to be of the opinion that it’s an option, albeit a very attractive one for most schools,” said Eric Premack, at left, the executive director of the Charter Schools Development Center, which supports and advocates for California charter schools.

 The California Charter Schools Association, a larger charter advocacy and support network, concurred and also advised its members that they were not legally required to offer transitional kindergarten.

The California Department of Education, however, does not consider the program optional. ”Each elementary or unified school district must offer transitional kindergarten and kindergarten classes for all children eligible to attend,” the state posted on a web page answering questions about transitional kindergarten. In July, the State Board of Education again indicated that it did not consider the program optional when it rejected waiver requests from nine school districts and one charter school hoping to delay implementation of transitional kindergarten, EdSource Today reported. 

“The California Department of Education maintains that if a charter school offers kindergarten, then it must offer transitional kindergarten,” department spokesperson Tina Jung said in an email. “If any charter school has questions about this, they can call our Charter School Division.”...